Sunday, June 5, 2011

Working Our Way Through the Letter A

Allergies, Autism, and... ASTHMA!?!

This has been one of those weeks that proves I really don't need to make things up because life as I know it is unbelievable enough.

After less than a week home from the hospital with the baby, I was sent to the ER for abdominal issues. Then two days later, Pink P went and stayed. So, out of the last 14 days, at least one person from our family was at the hospital 10 of those days.

Now, on top of the fact that we have to watch Pink P's various food allergies, she is also asthmatic. This was actually not surprising to doctors, but it was to us. In fact, we had no idea, which may explain why I made her go through an entire night during which she essentially couldn't breathe. She'd had shortness of breath and heavy coughing before, and her usual cough medicine in the nebulizer always seemed to work. So, I just assumed the severe shortness of breath and the fact she was not acting like herself would resolve once she had a good night's sleep. Oops. Bad mom!

By the time Ren took her to the ER the next morning (since nothing, and I mean nothing, is open on a Saturday morning in this small town), they determined she was in respiratory distress. Great. I mean, how much worse of a mom can I be? It took three days on oxygen and three nights in the hospital for her lungs to get back to normal. They tell me this isn't unusual (though that doesn't make me feel much better).

Everyone is home now, and our list of things to stay on top of keeps getting longer. Besides needing to know the triggers for Sky's meltdowns, which we are slowly figuring out, we now have to figure out what situations can trigger Pink P's breathing issues. Fortunately, Stow just eats, sleeps, and poops, so not much to figure out there--though I would like to work out just how many newborn diapers we will need until he grows into size one. The kid was huge when he was born, so common sense would dictate there is little need for tiny diapers. Not true. So far, we are blowing through 10-15 diapers a day, which means we've already made several diaper runs to buy more newborn diapers.

1 comment:

FMBMC
said...

That's ok. We'd been yelling at L for not telling us when he had to poop, for having too many accidents, etc. Turns out he was so constipated that his body was no longer sending signals to tell him he had to go. Yep, bad mom here, too!